H.J. Res. 133

(See front cover)

A Senate clerk stepped inside the House Chamber last week and announced in a loud voice: "A quorum of the Senate is assembled and the Senate is ready to proceed to business." The House membership was instantly convulsed with merriment. Sarcastic laughter rang to the glassed ceiling. Congressmen guffawed wildly, stamped their feet in derision, mockingly applauded. The juxtaposition of the words "Senate" and "business" even brought a smile to the bland face of Speaker Nicholas Longworth as he sat in his high presiding chair with the ornate mace of office fastened to the wall at his right. It was a fine professional joke.

Like his 434 colleagues in the House, Speaker Longworth was thoroughly cognizant of the Senate's recent fumblings and gropings with the tariff. Even he had spoken critically of what parliamentary practice required him to refer to as "another body." With his two trusted Lieutenants (Floorleader John Quillan Tilson, Rules Chairman Bertrand H. Snell) he was prepared to shame the Senate with exhibition of legislative despatch.

The public's jibes and jeers at the Senate's summer saunter through the tariff were enough to account for the Speaker's state of mind. What perhaps amused him most, what certainly incensed the Senate most, was the frequent charge that, like Nero, the Senate had fiddled while U. S. business burned (TIME, Dec. 2). Like many another, the Speaker had observed the Neronic figure of Senate Leader Watson, helpless to extinguish the spreading blaze of Senate insurgency.

To amuse himself and guests often Speaker Longworth plays the violin, plays it well. But he would not fiddle at a fire. House Joint Resolution No. 133 gave the Speaker a splendid chance to contrast with the Senate's sloth his own House's prized efficiency. H. J. Res. 133 was the measure providing the 1% income tax reduction called for by President Hoover (TIME, Dec. 9). The Ways & Means Committee had given it a favorable report in 30 minutes. For its discussion on the floor the Speaker allowed the House just three hours. To the debate he did not have to listen, because he turned the chair over to Representative Sloan of Nebraska during the bill's consideration in the Committee of the whole. Opposition to tax reduction came principally from Representatives Rankin of Mississippi, Ramseyer of Iowa, who argued heatedly but vainly for application of the surplus to public debt reduction.

When Speaker Longworth resumed his chair, there was no roll call on H. J. Res. 133, only a rising vote. With his gavel handle the Speaker went through the motions of counting while a sharp-eyed clerk took the actual tally, whispered the result up to him for announcements: 282 to 17. Tax reduction had been approved by the House four days after its introduction--a new record.

But there was more work to do and Speaker Longworth allowed the House no dalliance. Promptly taken up and considered was the first of the appropriation bills, $283,189,000 for the Interior Department.

Shamed by the House's despatch on tax reduction, the Senate began an attempt at imitation. Finance Committee approved H. J. Res. 133 quickly, unanimously. Out upon the Senate floor, however, it stirred old dissensions. Republican Leader Watson wanted to set aside the tariff bill for the tax bill. Others clamored for a completion of the tariff wool schedules first. Western Senators scowled at reduction of the corporation tax, beneficial chiefly to eastern industry. Senator Couzens of Michigan complained that the consumer, having already paid the 1929 tax to corporations, would not profit by that phase of the cut. It looked as if it would take the Senate days to do what the House did in hours.

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